Tag: Nottingham

On the third of November a letter was sent to the director, Hedley of the Trent Polytechnic, from its catering manager concerning homosexual activity in the Poly; the head barman complained of people in drag using the bar facilities.

The director explained to the president of the Student’s Union that he wanted the so-called “homosexual elements” out or he would close the bar.

At an Extraordinary General Meeting, a motion was passed to the effect that the union would not accept any discriminatory practices upon people entitled to enter the bar and who are acting within the law.

Although an important issue, since it entails bigoted discrimination against minority groups, many of the members of the union with whom we spoke see this as part of a much larger scheme directed at curbing student autonomy still further, and it was felt by the Labour Club that recent disciplinary action were all part of this attack.

It is seen that Hedley is using this issue to split the Union, on the theory of divide and rule, and that drag is just an excuse, a tactical move, more political especially as it comes at a time when the Instruments and Articles come under review and the Executive’s time is taken up by the bar situation. At the root of Hedley’s continual threats to close the bar is his resolve that he would much rather not have a bar at all if it meant that the standards that he thought appropriate for an institution of further education were not maintained.

He states that he merely wants to maintain the standards which apply in any public house and that he doesn’t want his £13½m development plan endangered by a lot of queers.

He justifies his prejudices against what he affectionately terms “hard-line homosexuals” by referring to what is generally believed to be a fictitious telephone call from the Assistant Chief Constable who allegedly warned repressed Gruppenfuhrer Hedley that hordes of nasty offensive queers were changing their patronage from Mario’s which was following police advice by discouraging overt homosexuality. There is no reason to believe this is true.

Moreover, Hedley’s definition of drag is at best an unconventional one. It seems important to make this clear, by all accounts there has been, with one exception, no real drag except during Karnival.

By drag, Hedley means the use of makeup, and his hatred of homosexuality further manifested itself in the recent Management Committee meeting where he and Lyon (Deputy Director, Student Affairs) insisted that not only the bar was involved. If a person in drag (sic) was found in lectures or any part of the Poly premises, action would be taken. The president replied that in such a case that person would be defended by the Union.

The Ragman’s Daughter is one of those films which make me want to be able to write more vividly, more tenderly, because it stained my eyes with tears, not because of its sloppy sentimentality, but because of its simple poignant reality. It’s one of those films one falls in love with, one wants to see it over and over again.

Filmed almost entirely on location in and around Nottingham, it traces, largely in flashback, the brief stpirited youth and inextricable fast decline of one of yer average Nottingham lads, or perhaps he’s not all that average; he is in fact a sub-conscious revolutionary. He doesn’t work — he won’t work. He steals for kicks, for money, and this is what attracts the girl to him. She’s wealthy; her Dad’s a kind of Nottingham mafia regime. When yer short of cash, he gives you a pittance for your bundle of old clothes.

Stealing’s exciting and the boy’s good looking, good in bed, but she won’t go away with him – likes her monied security as well. He falls in love with her of course. Gets her pregnant; gets caught burgling. Approved School. His hair’s cut; he emerges stooping, unattractive, youthful vitality gone, the grey drag of life on his shoulders. She got married while he was inside, killed in a motor accident. They used to ride madly on his bike without accidents, but that was in the brief period of youthful freedom fate allowed.

We also see the boy ten or fifteen years later, married, kids, living in a tower block. That’s not as friendly as the old terraced houses, where you met the neighbours at the row of loos behind the terrace. Nottingham’s as grey as ever. He’s got a soul destroying job in a wholesale dairy. Gets the push for stealing a pound of cheese. His life with fifty million others has congealed in a drab rut. Super movie.

NOTTINGHAM: Northern gays are being hit by a crack-down in Nottingham’s one gay bar, where the manager has now refused to sell Gay News, as well as refusing to pay for copies of the paper which he has received.

The manager, who also owns Mario’s club, in Castle Gate. Nottingham, is James Heatherington. He told Gay News he was not gay.

He agreed originally by post, to sell the paper in the club, but since then has refused to put it on sale. Questioned by Gay News he refused to advise us to stop supplying him with the paper.

The saddest thing is that Heatherington’s club is described as the “nearest good club” by a lonely gay from Leeds who wrote to GN.

Quite apart from not paying Gay News for any copies he has sold, Heatherington has refused to return any unsold copies.

Here is our first round up of pubs, clubs and other goodies in the provinces. More towns will be listed as we receive the information from YOU the reader. We are indebted to Bob Mellors for supplying the information below.